“I will make every effort to make our community proud”

Friday

For many years, Liliana de Sousa was the face of the Boston Portuguese Festival, but this year’s the celebration is spearheaded by a new Board of Directors.

Rui F. Domingos, the Chief Executive Officer at Naveo Credit Union who has been appointed president of the Board, told O Jornal that with his new duties comes a great sense of pride and a great deal of responsibility.

“I take this responsibility very seriously and will make every effort to make our community proud,” he said. “The Boston Portuguese Festival is a recognized brand with a 15-year history, and a relevant organization in our community. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by a great group of Board members that are committed to our mission and understand the BPF potential to provide the much needed visibility to the Portuguese community in Massachusetts and beyond.”

Domingos said this is a transitional year for the Boston Portuguese Festival (BPF) in many ways.

“The Boston Portuguese Festival was recently restructured. We have recently become an official 503 (c) (3) nonprofit, which was a big step in officially formalizing the BPF as an independent entity,” he said. “The BPF was started nearly 15 years ago, but it was never fiscally independent and never had its own structure like many other nonprofits across the Commonwealth. I’m very pleased that we have been able to accomplish this in such a short period off time.”

The new Board is also working on getting the entire Portuguese community behind the BPF and getting everyone to realize that it represents all of the Portuguese communities in Massachusetts, just not those in the greater Boston area.

“One of the BPF goals is to unite our communities so we can be perceived as a strong and larger community in Massachusetts,” he said. “It’s a challenge to continue to grow the BPF and to make sure everyone understands and supports our mission.”

Domingos said the BPF is available to collaborate with the General Consulate of Portugal in Boston in any activity that will be to the benefit of the Portuguese communities.

“Our purpose is to promote the image of Portugal and the visibility of the Portuguese community and its ancestry in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and to engage in activities that for charitable purposes are consistent with its mission,” he said.

Domingos is not a newcomer to the BPF. He served as a member of the festival’s committee for a number of years.

In addition, several other causes have been dear to his heart.

He has been a strong advocate of the Portuguese language and culture and other causes to benefit the Portuguese-speaking community. He has been a supporter of the PortugueseSchool of Cambridge and Somerville, and developed and implemented a student exchange program between MatignonHigh School in Cambridge and MaristaHigh School in Lisbon to promote the Portuguese Language.

He has also led the interest-free “Dreamer Loan” project with the Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers (MAPS), which helps U.S. citizenship applicants eliminate financial barriers to becoming naturalized.

More recently he became a co-chair of the Chip-In for Charity Golf Tournament which benefits the MAPSSeniorCenter in Cambridge.

“I’m involved and support many local non profit organizations that are making a difference in our communities,” Domingos said.

Curiously, he immigrated twice to this country.

A native of the small village of Quintela de Azurara, near Mangualde, mainland Portugal, he came to the United States with his parents at age 2, but returned to Portugal three years later.

“I grew up mostly in Portugal and lived there until I finished high school. I decided to continue my education in the U.S. due to a lack of access to Portuguese universities,” he told O Jornal.

He moved to the United States in 1988 and attended Bunker HillCommunity College for three years. He subsequently transferring to BentleyUniversity to pursue a degree in Accounting/Finance but ended up earning a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He later received a Master’s degree in Business Administration from CambridgeCollege.

He will be proudly celebrating his heritage and accomplishments at the BPF and invites others to do the same.

“On behalf of the entire BPF team, I would like to invite our community to support the Boston Portuguese Festival by sponsoring our event and joining us on Sunday, June 23 at the Boston City Hall Plaza from 12 to 8 p.m.,” Domingos said. “Last year’s event was a great success and to continue we need everyone to be present again.”

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